HOW GOD'S FINEST FOOD IS TREATED HERE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1188, 25 July 1911, Page 9

HOW GOD'S FINEST FOOD IS TREATED HERE.

Sir-In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve were told to cat the fruit which was especially planted lor them, and all dawn through the early ages fruit was accepted as the first necessary of lite. The Orientals now simply live on fruit and rice, but hero fruit is not used at all as a food and only sparingly as a luxury. 1 ask lor fruit at the restaurants and d'ming tables, and am (old <t is too dear to use, and in the shops 1 find beet and mutton cheaper than apples and pears, and, wiir.c is worse, everybody seems to have fallen into the notion that all this is quire as it should be, and that it is a sort of dispensation of Providenco that children and others shall not have fruit. Now all this is downright wicked. As a physician of -10 years' standing and experience, I maintain that a plentiful supply of fruit is more necessary than meat, especially for children. But I am asked how it is to bo done, as certainly at present prices it is impossible to the ordinary housekeeper. In Tasmania fruit-growing as well as iruit-eating has been one of niv hobbies, and my orchards turn on' 10,000 bushels a year of apples (20 varieties), pears (70 varieties), plums (greengage, golden drop, and Angelina), apricots, cherries, etc., niost of which now goes to England. Now instead of this I am willing to land it here in 21 to 301b. boxes at lid. per lb. Thus each week in January Jo,ooolb. of cherries, cherry plums, and apricots; February, each week 10,0001b. of apricots, anplos and pears; .March, each week 10,0001b. of apples, pears, plums, etc., and so on up to tho last week in December, apples being the chief fruit for the last few months of tho year. lam willing to si-rn a contract to this effect under a .£I3OO bond that if shall he carried out. The-? boxes should be delivered at vaur house for 3d., and the box itself would be worth that. So you would iret 2-flb. of the finest fruit grown in Tasmania (which is far better than fruit grown here) for 3s. As you now pay Bs. to 12s. for this ouantity (and in a month or two it will be more), some idea might be formed of wnat you owe to your very paternal Government and your very' much trusted John Chinaman. Anyway, do not blame Providence when your children cry for fruit which you cannot give them.—l am etc., ' tti l J!. BENJAFIELD, Sf.B. Hobart.